Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge entered rarefied air on Thursday.
He was named AL MVP for the second time, receiving all 30 first-place votes and joining elite company.
Per ESPN, Judge became the third active Yankees captain to win MVP, following catcher Thurman Munson and first baseman Lou Gehrig.
Judge hit .322 with an MLB-high 58 home runs in 2024. His .458 on-base percentage ranked first, and he drove in 18.9% of the base runners he inherited, which ranked eighth in MLB among batters with at least 350 inherited base runners, one spot ahead of NL MVP Shohei Ohtani.
His MVP win wouldn’t have seemed possible early in the season. In his first 27 games, Judge hit .178 with four home runs and nearly twice as many strikeouts (35) as hits (18).
Judge won the award over his final 131 games, batting .354 with 54 home runs, 131 runs batted in and a .488 on-base percentage.
Gehrig, a two-time MVP, was named Yankees captain in 1935 and won his second award the following season in 1936.
Munson was the Bronx Bombers’ first captain since Gehrig’s death in 1941. He received the honor in 1976, the same year he won his only MVP award while hitting .302 and leading the Yankees to the World Series.
Gehrig was the only one to win the Fall Classic during their MVP season.
The Cincinnati Reds swept Munson’s 1976 Yankees, and Judge’s Yankees lost in five games to the Dodgers in the 2024 World Series.
Judge was named the 16th Yankees captain in franchise history in 2022. He was their first captain since Hall of Fame shortstop Derek Jeter retired in 2014.
